“American Primeval” A Netflix Hit That Gets A Lot Of Wyoming History Wrong

Fans of the Netflix blockbuster “American Primeval” have been calling up Fort Bridger in southwest Wyoming looking for the hangman’s spot.

The attention is welcome in some respects, Cowboy State Daily was told. The Fort Bridger Historic Site can use more visitors. But there’s a good reason why fans of the show can’t find the hanging spot at the real Fort Bridger between Evanston and Rock Springs.

There isn’t one. Never was.

The hanging that people saw in the first episode of “Primeval” is pure fiction, part of a plot that draws so liberally from history that it’s turning off many historians who have quit watching it because it’s traveled too far from reality. 

In the hanging scene, the heroine of the story, named Sara, is arguing with mountain man Jim Bridger about setting out for the fictional town of Crook Springs, somewhere past the Wasatch Mountains in Utah just before winter. But her argument keeps getting interrupted by Bridger, as he summarily dispenses rough justice to the drunken man who has attacked and killed her wagon team driver — all in front of her young son, Devin.

Despite the gritty realism of the scene, there’s no record of any hangings at the fort, Fort Bridger Historical Society Office Manager Martha Powers told Cowboy State Daily.

“It was pretty quiet at the fort,” she said. “There weren’t any hangings.”

And quiet actually makes perfect sense in the real world that’s not Hollywood, the world where people have to make a living. 

While Fort Bridger may have been on the edge of known civilization at the time, frontiersman Bridger was trying to sell goods and services to the settlers and other groups traveling through. 

The mud and blood depicted at the fort certainly wouldn’t have served his purposes there. And it was one of the first red flags historian and Cowboy State Daily columnist Candy Moulton noticed. 

“The fort visually was not too bad, though there sure was a lot of mud,” she said. “Bridger as a character seemed pretty good. But the violence and actions at his fort seemed way over-the-top to me. And that was the best part of the film from a historical perspective.”

In fact, the history was so far off the mark, Moulton quit watching after only a couple of episodes and said she probably won’t watch any more.

“If people want to watch it as a fictional film, they can,” she said. “But the history is mostly wrong and instead is an amalgamation of many things that happened — but not in that specific time frame and not in those locations.”

What Hollywood Needs

One reason for the gritty darkness of the series, according to one of the film’s producers, was to take the “rose-colored” glasses off of history. But in their place is a much darker, charcoal gray pair of glasses instead, that has made the time period and the humanity seem far darker than it was.

But part of that might be more about what Hollywood needs. The executives who pick winners in the movie industry already have some pretty tried and true ideas about what makes a successful movie. And, in their calculus, it’s the box office that’s king. Ticket sales, first and last.

The ticket-winning formulas that Hollywood loves have become fairly recognizable to most. Sum it up as an interesting character who has their hiney caught in a bear trap, and how they do — or sometimes don’t — get out of it. The latter, though, is far less common. Audiences don’t like it when the hero doesn’t win. Losing, or even dying, may be more realistic. But audiences won’t buy as many tickets.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt the ticket-winning formula if there’s some sort of ticking clock that creates some urgency. In Primeval’s case, that’s the rapidly approaching winter. It will make the mountains impassable. 

It also doesn’t hurt if there are some exciting little subplots to mirror or expand on the main bear trap. That just helps deepen the emotional response.

And if, at the end, a legendary figure can walk away into the sunset with the world burning down behind him or her? Well, so much the better. It will be memorable and stick in the mind of the viewers, which might in turn drive more ticket sales.

All of that and more is what “American Primeval” delivers in full cinematic force. And it’s a large part of the reason why the miniseries has become such a blockbuster around the globe, with 27 million views and counting, and a seeming death grip on the No. 1 spot in Netflix’s Top 10.

Liberties Taken With Mountain Meadows Massacre 

The “bear trap,” in Primeval’s case are murder accusations following the fictional Sara, along with a juicy $1,500 bounty on her head — a king’s ransom in those days. That’s what’s forced her to attempt a dangerous journey to Crook Springs. She can’t protect her son anymore. 

And that’s also the real reason she can’t wait around at Fort Bridger for spring, over-the-top violence that she doesn’t want her son Devin to see aside.

To get out of this bear trap, she first has to convince Bridger to help her find a new guide. So, Bridger introduces her to Isaac, another fictional character, who is a complete loner of a mountain man. He tells her he doesn’t care how much she’s paying — even if it’s $750, half a king’s ransom in those days. Isaac has no business in Crooks Springs, therefore, he absolutely will not take her there.

That leads Sara to the ill-fated Fancher wagon train. 

Fancher being one-half of the name of the famous Fancher-Baker wagon train that was slaughtered during the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah, in 1857.

The Baker-Fancher party were headed for California on the same trail that Latter-day Saints of the time believed federal troops would use to invade them.

Historical records suggest that members of the Baker-Fancher party taunted some of the LDS locals, arguing over their unwillingness to barter for supplies the wagon train needed, by suggesting that they would return to help the Army clear the Mormon settlers out.

Tensions escalated as the wagon train continued through Mormon territory, and eventually, Mormon militiamen enlisted the aid of Paiute Indians to launch a siege, encircling their wagons for four days. 

The militiamen offered the party safe passage to Utah if they would just lay down their arms. But, when they did so, the militiamen instead killed every man, woman, and even children over the age of 5.

The only lives spared were children less than 5, who were adopted by local families.

Questions about the massacre have remained to the present-day, including how involved the Mormon Church’s leader, Brigham Young really was.

But the massacre in “American Primeval” takes quite a few liberties with what really happened.

First, the massacre never happened anywhere near Fort Bridger, despite the appearance in the miniseries that it was 10 minutes or so away. It was actually hundreds of miles away, in present-day southern Utah.

“There is no documented attack on a civilian wagon train of families by Indians or Mormons anywhere near Fort Bridger,” Moulton said.

In fact, Bridger had a great relationship with all the Native Americans living around Fort Bridger at the time, who would have been Shoshone, led by Chief Washakie.

“Washakie was a good friend of Jim Bridger, and Jim Bridger married his daughter,” said historian Tom Rae with the Wyoming Historical Society.

Shoshone Not As Bloodthirsty As Portrayed

In the miniseries, Isaac is watching as the massacre goes down, and intervenes to save Sara and her son, Devin, from her pursuers, along with a mute Shoshone girl, who had been hiding in Sara’s wagon.

The raid is where one of the miniseries’ subplots begin. 

The two survivors of the fictional raid include a woman named Abish, who winds up in the hands of a Shoshone chief named Red Feather, who unceremoniously slits the throats of all the white women the Paiutes had wanted to take for themselves. But, when Red Feather comes to Abish, she doesn’t plead for her life. She offers her throat to him defiantly. That gives him pause, and he saves her instead.

The other survivor is Abish’s husband, who falls into the hands of the Mormon perpetrators who led the raid. He does not realize they’re only helping him find Abish so they can see to it that both survivors perish.

Red Feather is among the most prominently featured members of the Shoshone tribe in the miniseries, but he’s a completely fictional character, and doesn’t seem to be based on any real figures from history.

His actions, as well, weren’t true to the Shoshone culture, says Dave Parry, a former chairman of the Northwest Band of Shoshone.

“That was pretty confusing to me,” Parry told Cowboy State Daily. “I find all of that really hard to believe. Our culture wouldn’t have killed women, not even the white women.”

He did appreciate the sensitive portrayal of Shoshone women, which he felt showed his culture’s matriarchal nature. He also liked the use of authentic language.

“That’s one thing I thought the filmmakers really got right, was how authentic our Shoshone women were as leaders,” he said. “They made sure our leaders and others in the tribe made good decisions, and they kept an eye on the village.”

But, in so many other areas, Parry felt the show fell far short of his hopes, and glossed over some history that was much more interesting — and in some cases more brutal — than the fiction. 

“They just take a great license (with history) to tell this story,” he said. “I did enjoy watching it, but I think if they would have told the real story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre or the Bear River Massacre, it would have been much more compelling.”

Young As A New York Mobster

There’s also an epic clash between Jim Bridger and Brigham Young, inspired by the tensions during the so-called Utah War of 1857.

There were real tensions between Young and other groups in the area, including Bridger.

“A lot of that was over money and resources,” Rae said. “Who would control the immigrant trade at Fort Bridger? Who would control the ferry payments and that.”

But open shooting conflicts between mountain men and Mormons and Indians didn’t happen, Rae added. Not around Fort Bridger. 

And the portrayal of Brigham Young as an evil mastermind, directing violence from on high, is just another over-the-top feature of “American Primeval.” Young, as portrayed by “American Primeval” is pure evil. A villain extraordinaire.

“This idea of Brigham Young as a man of war, as a man of violence, is, I think, deeply misguided,” said historian Matt Grow, who is managing director of the Church History Department for the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. “The Mountain Meadows Massacre is a real event. It’s a terrible crime, a terrible tragedy, and it occurs at this time of great fear and great suspicion of the Latter-day Saints against outsiders.”

A federal army is being sent to Utah, because the federal government has received reports that the Latter-day Saints are in open rebellion, Grow explained. And that army is going to winter at Fort Bridger.

But what church records show is that Young sent messages to the local Mormon groups not to interfere or “meddle” with the immigrant trains. 

“Ever since the Mountain Meadows Massacre, people have blamed Young,” Grow said. “There’s this sort of belief that nothing could have happened in Utah without Brigham Young commanding it. But it’s just not true.”

Let The Healing Begin

Jay Haderlie, who grew up in Star Valley, said he has always felt that the messages from Young simply arrived too late to do any good.

“It was a problem of timeliness,” he said. “Not affirmation. It wasn’t a period of rapid communication, so how fast could those messages have come?”

Growing up, Haderlie learned about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, similar to the way students learn about internment camps during World War II.

“Yes, that happened, but it’s a lesson about World War II, not civil rights,” he said. “So, we’re going to go on with what happened in World War II.”

Haderlie said the inaccuracies won’t stop him from enjoying the series, any more than the inaccuracies in Westerns. But history teacher Sharolyn Stauffer had a stronger reaction to what she saw. Like Moulton, she quit watching it. 

“It is very fictional,” she said. “And just the unfair stereotypes. And the native groups are not clear in the film, the Paiute versus Shoshone, so it just confuses some of that.”

She particularly disliked the license she feels was taken in the portrayal of Young, which she likened to some sort of New York mob boss.

“He’s like some kind of combination revivalist, and it’s just funny how they show him in the second episode, sitting out in the sage brush with his friends,” she said. “He would have actually had a house in a small city. They made it look like he’s out camping.”

Stauffer said she hopes that people will look at the movie critically and realize that it doesn’t match up with the historical record and be inspired to learn more about the real history. 

In recent times, more information has been released about the Mountain Meadows Massacre by the church, Haderlie added. He, too, is hopeful that people will start to give the history of that time a closer look, as well as work to settle some of the questions that do remain about what happened.

“One thing that kind of gives me hope is that when Gordon B. Hinckley was the prophet of the church, the Mountain Meadows Massacre was of some concern to them, and during his time of leadership, he made sure there was a monument set up in the area to commemorate what had happened. Not to commemorate what members of the church did but to commemorate the lives lost.”

Hinckley was the 15th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving until his death in 2008.

The church also isn’t a fan, slamming the production as “graphic and sensationalized storytelling” in a statement released Friday.

Acknowledging the Mountain Meadows Massacre as a “horrific tragedy,” the church says it has “taken significant steps to uncover and share the full truth of what happened and promote healing.”

It also took issue with how the production portrayed Young as “egregiously mischaracterized as a villainous, violent fanatic.”

About That Fiery Ending

At the end of American Primeval, Young has forced Bridger to sell the fort, suggesting without saying so that violence will result if Bridger doesn’t sell. 

That leads to the rather dramatic exit, where Bridger walks off into the night with Fort Bridger burning down behind him.

But that is all just more Hollywood narrative. 

Historical records show Bridger contested Young’s claims of purchasing the fort. The Mormons do burn down the fort — after Bridger gives the army permission to winter there. 

Bridger had already left the area by the time the Fort burned down.

But it never hurts Hollywood movies to end in flames, with a cowboy riding off into the sunset. Even if that cowboy was actually a mountain man, who was more likely to wear mountain man leathers than a cowboy suit.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.